Pair may be long lost WW II soldiers

I remember that story from 1974. Both of these are amazing!

I am stunned.
As I am participating in playing an opera this autumn, which is, chiefly, to mourn late soldiers of WWII as victims of the policy, I am very impressed.
(They are living.)

They must have a remarkable tale of survival to tell.

Diplomats on hunt for war holdouts exit Mindanao
Team told to return to embassy in Manila and wait amid concern go-between is untrustworthy

Japanese officials left the southern Philippine island of Mindanao on Monday and headed back to Manila after failing to arrange an interview with two men said to be Japanese soldiers from World War II.
Akio Egawa, deputy chief of the Japanese Embassy in Manila, and his team left the city of General Santos in the afternoon after receiving an order from the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo to return to Manila.

The Japanese Embassy in Manila has found the Japanese man who said he would arrange the interview to be "not trustworthy," Japanese government sources said Sunday night.

The embassy officials and a welfare ministry official from Tokyo who have been dispatched to General Santos to confirm the men's identities have been unable to do so because the mediator wanted to hold their meeting "in a calm place," Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said.

Despite the pullback, the Japanese government will continue to wait for contact from the middleman to confirm if the two are really Imperial army holdouts and willing to return home, Hosoda said in a news conference.

"The government intends to continue contact with the mediator in order to have an interview with the people in question and directly confirm their identities as long as there is a possibility they are former Japanese soldiers," he said.

As for the credibility of the Japanese mediator, the top government spokesman said, "We will have to make a judgment carefully."

Before leaving General Santos on Monday, Egawa told reporters that his team in Mindanao has no idea of the current whereabouts of the two possible soldiers.

"We are keeping close contact with the mediator. However, until this moment . . . the date, the timing for an interview by (the) Japanese government has not been decided yet. The mediator said he will inform the embassy about the timing of the interview at a later date.

"He said he wants to have the interview at a later date in a quieter situation. So, in view of this, the Japanese Embassy in the Philippines has decided that the embassy staff who have been in General Santos will be recalled to Manila for the time being and the embassy will be waiting for further contact from the mediator," Egawa said.

Egawa said he met with the mediator for two hours Sunday but declined to comment on whether the mediator presented evidence the two Japanese men are alive.

About 100 journalists, mostly from Japan, started arriving in General Santos from Friday as embassy officials tried to arrange a meeting with the two soldiers.

The sudden arrival of foreign reporters caused quite a stir as they asked around about the two soldiers, prompting local security and embassy officials to caution them against venturing beyond the city.

Egawa called the situation "volatile" and said security is becoming a concern as journalists may stray into the mountainous areas in search of leads about the two men.

The Japan Times: May 31, 2005